Sergio Marchionne and his executives set the appropriate tone this week at their marathon, six-hour-long unveiling of Chrysler's rescue strategy. The strategy is bizarre, and so was the meeting.

Sergio Marchionne and his executives set the appropriate tone this week at their marathon, six-hour-long unveiling of Chrysler's rescue strategy. The strategy is bizarre, and so was the meeting.

In his impassioned windup to the more than 300 industry analysts, dealers, government officials and auto journalists gathered at Chrysler's headquarters in suburban Detroit, Marchionne quoted Bill Clinton, Machiavelli and Bobby McFerrin.

Weird.

Marchionne, who spent most of his career in Toronto before a short stint with an Italian firm brought him to the attention of a then-crippled Fiat, had allowed earlier in the day that he bought a Fiat in 1968 in Toronto and was not impressed.

"If you had told me then I would be running Fiat, I would have laughed my head off."

Chrysler's salvation, should it come about, is entirely tied to its "Fiat-ization." To the adoption of Fiat styling, engine and drivetrain technology, and supposedly state-of-the-art manufacturing methods.

Decades after Fiat was driven out of a North American market where it had failed dismally, the stigma of "Fix it again, Tony" still falls readily from the lips of auto enthusiasts when the word Fiat is mentioned. Why remind us?

Weird.

Fiat's Canadian boss bragged that Chrysler's upscale Town and Country minivan, assembled in Windsor, is moving through Canadian showrooms like "chickenpox through a kindergarten class." Veteran auto analyst Nick Bunkley, who was live-Twittering the event, tweeted: "I can't make this crap up."

Marchionne has had precious little to say about his plan to restore Chrysler to viability since it exited bankruptcy in June. He did give one interview in which he complained that Chrysler was in much worse shape that he had imagined. A real confidence builder, that. Marchionne was at it again on Wednesday, boosting morale with his observation that Chrysler's in trouble "but it's not terminal"

This desultory tone was consistent with Marchionne's regard for Chrysler since Day One last spring. He insisted then that he would not take the reins at Chrysler, until Washington told him that was not on. He held out for a gratis 35 per cent stake in Chrysler until Barack Obama told him that was too greedy. (Marchionne had to settle for 20 per cent.)

He made war on Chrysler dealers by loading them up with inventory and then shutting them down. He fired the heads of the Dodge and Chrysler brands, posts to which he had just promoted them, when they broke Marchionne's directive not to talk to the auto press at the Frankfurt auto show. Omniscience and pettiness aren't an ideal mix in a turnaround CEO, whose troops already balk at keeping Marchionne's work hours. (The boss gets by on four hours' sleep.)

Despite four months to prepare, Wednesday's crucial tone-setting presentation fell flat. Not only from the gaffes, but the shoot-the-moon goals Marchionne proclaimed, described by one of the analysts at the Detroit event as "boldly delusional."

As one executive after another talked of doubling sales of a brand or boosting market share by unrealistic amounts, there were collective gasps in the audience. What are these guys smoking?

Still, it was a friendly audience. The auto press would love a Chrysler comeback story. There had to be a less petty way for Marchionne to deal with unstated skepticism than to say it is a "worldwide sport of beating people who are down."

The truth about Chrysler is that it's not down, but out. In a glut of global capacity, what the industry needs is for this chronically mismanaged firm to go away. Instead, Washington, Ottawa and Queen's Park have extended a total of about $14 billion in emergency loans to a company that hit the wall in the early 1970s, again a decade later, and survives now only on government life support – the latter an expression of goodwill that Marchionne might someday show some appreciation for.

Fiat has none of its own money on the line in this latest gambit to make Chrysler sustainably viable. It got its 20 per cent equity stake in the firm in exchange for taking on the task of fixing it. Marchionne has vowed not to commit a single euro of Fiat's own money to reviving Chrysler. Fair enough, since Fiat itself is bleeding cash back home in Europe.

In a nutshell, Marchionne proposes to spend $23 billion (U.S.) to develop 21 new bestselling vehicles that will roughly double Chrysler's North American market share in the short space of three or four model years. To make Chrysler profitable in just two or three years – something that earlier Chrysler owner Daimler AG could not do in nine years – and to pay off its $14 billion in government emergency loans by 2014.

Chrysler's sales volume has cratered by 50 per cent over the past two years. Its year-over-year market share has plummeted to 7.9 per cent in October from 11.3 per cent.

Where is the $23 billion (U.S.) going to come from, if not from Fiat? From a miraculous upturn in sales of Chrysler's current, unpopular product line, which will get a slapdash sprucing-up (inexpensive improvements to interiors, exterior trim and so on).

"It's cosmetics," shrugged Rebecca Lindland, of IHS Global Insight, telling the Detroit Free Press she cannot imagine that showroom dust-collectors like the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger are suddenly going to move like H1N1 through a crowded subway car.

Those 21 new Fiat-based models won't start arriving at Chrysler dealers for at least two years – the time needed to retool Chrysler plants, and for Chrysler hands to learn Fiat's manufacturing methods. That's too late. A resurgent Ford Motor Co. will have replaced its entire lineup by then. Also, its other rivals won't be watching grass grow under their feet.

The real problem is the Fiat-ization of Chrysler. Americans have never taken to Fiat styling. Fiat is the unlikeliest candidate to erase Chrysler's abysmal reputation for poor quality. Fiat itself ranks in the bottom quarter of more than 20 brands in J.D. Power's latest customer satisfaction survey in the company's core European market.

The word crapshoot comes to mind to describe what Marchionne is embarked on, that's how pie-in-the-sky it is. Except in that game, you play with your own money.

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